My Good Friend

Growing up, I've acquainted many different people of different lifestyles and backgrounds. A portion of these individuals has grown to be very good friends of mine, while the other portion remain in this bubble I refer to as "associates." ever since I was younger I always happened to make friends with people that were in some way, shape, or form similar to me; whether it was same interest in a particular sport or teams, same religious background, same cultural background, or even the same taste in genres of music. I'm a very outgoing person, not the type that constantly annoys people to the point that you just want to rip their heads off, all because of how outgoing they are, but I consider myself as the type that can easily have a solid conversation with just about anyone. My personality easily reflects the people I consider as friends. For example, I have a few friends that are pure southern, deer hunting, truck driving country boys; however I also have friends that are the complete opposite. I’m talking about guys that have 24inch rims on their Cadillac, dreads down their backs and are considered as pure “Gangsters.”
Out of all of the people that I have encountered in life and that I considered good friends of mine, one that stands out more than the rest is a guy that I sometimes have trouble understanding. I remember many different occasions in-which I took time to study this guy and it always seems that, no matter how much time I took out of my day to attempt to understand this guy, I just could not get a complete understanding of who he is. Out of all the people that know, this guy was definitely the most complicated. I don't want to call him a fake, but it almost seems as if this guy would put on different faces for different situations and different people. I remember just last year, he would go to school and he would always have glowing smile on his face as he walked from class to class. One day some random guy approached him and introduced himself and said, “I see you just about every day and you always seem so happy, I really don’t mean to be rude or to get in your business, but why are you always so happy?” This question seem to troubled my friend, he gazed into space as if he was searching for a answer that would be something close to what the guy asking him the question wanted to hear, so he took a few seconds to answer and finally he said “it’s good to be alive,” and he immediately walked away. What he forgot to tell this guy is how many times he contemplated suicide and how much he sometimes hated himself because of the person that he was. Telling people what they wanted to hear and doing things to make other people happy was something my friend struggled with, he would be so focus on pleasing other people that he would never figure out what really makes him happy. At the age of sixteen he realizes that he had a problem with depression. However, he was so worried about how his family and friends would view him, that he never seeks any kind of psychological help or ever took time to confront his problem before it could escalate. During the time he was facing the depression issue, he would have these dreams about death and how he would get so close to dying and all of the sudden he would startle out of his sleep and begin to cry. One of the dreams that stands out to him is a dream that seems all too real to even be considered a dream, during this dream, as my friend was awakened by the strong aroma of his mother cooking breakfast, he opened his dark-brown eyes and in attempt to get out of his bed, it appeared as if a force was holding him down, he would scream but his voice could not even be heard by his own ear, he screamed, he tried to fight this force, and he cried but nothing seemed to be working, the only thought going through his mind at that time, for some reason was the thought of him going to hell, he finally decided to scream “in the name of Jesus, Lord please let me up.” He immediately got up and couldn’t register if this was truly a dream because it all seemed too real and too vivid. That same week my friend had another dream and this time he was walking through an alley and some random guy walked behind him and shot him three times on the back and as my friend was laying there dying he blacked out and woke up. My friend started having different dreams of the similar theme for a month straight after the dreams took place. During this time he also contemplated suicide several times. He would drink alcohol to the point that he had to get his stomach pumped two times in one month because of alcohol poisoning. He got addicted to different kinds of prescription pills, such as morphine, xanax, oxycodone and many other drugs. His parents finally got tired of him and kicked him out of their house when he was just seventeen. Unable to take care of him-self, he finally moved in with his sister and despite how much damaged drugs and alcohol had done to his life, he just would not stop. During the summer of his eighteenth birthday a good friend of his invited him to attend church and because he remembers lying to this guy so many times about going to church with him, he finally decided to give this church thing a try. During that church service the preacher really touched his life, he almost felt as if the preacher was directly preaching to him. That same day he gave his heart to God and from that moment on he started taking steps to improve his life. However, even though he stopped the drinking and the drugs, his biggest battle was with himself, because he had trouble finding his identity, he had a problem of understand his purpose and who he was as a person.

Days went on after my friend was asked why he looked so happy, so he finally decided to talk to go to his pastor and explain to him his situation and how he truly felt about the person he was and the pastor started to mentor him and giving him different advice of how to cope with life in and of itself.

THE END.